Features

NEW YORK — Instead of dishing out a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or a electric vehicle, Hyundai did all three — in a single car.

It’s the new Ioniq — pronounced “Ionic” — that will come to showrooms later this year and early next year in its various iterations. In unveiling the car at the New York Auto Show, Hyundai promised it’s not going to be just another small, fuel-efficient, high-tech car, but rather one that should post some astounding gas-mileage and range numbers:

•The hybrid version is expected to be rated at 91.2km or 92.8km per gallon in combined city and highway driving. That would be better than the Toyota’s Prius, the leading hybrid.

•The plug-in version is expected to have an electric-only range of 40km before the gas engine kicks in, which would higher than the Prius’ plug-in version. It will have a range of about 900km between its battery and gas engine.

•The full electric will have a range of 176km between charges, which is towards the top of the range of cars that aren’t Teslas or Chevy Bolts.

Selling hybrids or electrics becomes more difficult in an era of low gas prices, but Ioniq has the advantage of being sporty behind the wheel, says Mike O’Brien, Hyundai Motor America’s planning chief. “Certainly the price of gas isn’t going to help us,” he says. But designers and engineers approached Ioniq from a unique standpoint: “How do we make a hybrid that’s more fun to drive than a gas car?”

He calls it a “no-compromises hybrid”.

WASHINGTON — Stroll around the office or neighbourhood six times a day, and earn $1.5 towards your health insurance. Step up activity a bit more and bring the total to $1,400 annually.

The catch: you need to wear a special activity tracker that monitors steps taken, “intensity” levels and other physical indicators.

That’s the offer in a new insurance product marketed by UnitedHealthcare, the second-largest US health insurer, one of many programmes aimed at boosting physical fitness and reducing health insurance costs for employers and employees.

“One of the greatest challenges we have is how to incentivise and motivate individuals to be accountable for their own heath and well-being,” said Steve Beecy of UnitedHealthcare.

He called the Trio Tracker device, introduced with technology partner Qualcomm, “a game changer”.

Across the US, employers are stepping up the use of technology in “wellness” programmes that encourage healthier lifestyles.

Wellness programmes aren’t new, but technology like activity trackers has transformed them with more precise measurements and automated uploads to verify activity.

A survey of more than 200 large employers by the National Business Group on Health found 37 per cent used activity trackers in 2015, and another 37 per cent planned to adopt the technology in coming years. 

“There is a strong interest [in the use of technology] because of the impact on an employer’s long-term healthcare costs,” said Scott Marcotte of Xerox Human Resources, which participated in the study.

Makers of activity trackers such as Fitbit and Jawbone have been expanding their efforts to be part of corporate wellness programmes.

One of the biggest tie-ups was announced last year when US retail giant Target said it would offer free or discounted Fitbit trackers to its more than 300,000 employees.

‘Gamification’

As a further incentive, Target said it would allow teams of employees which log the most average daily steps to collect more than $1 million for local non-profit organisations.

This strategy of providing financial incentives for healthy activity is known in the industry as “gamification”.

Jimmy Fleming of the consulting group Healthy Wage said financial incentives can make a difference in spurring healthier behaviours.

“We have a lot of clients who want to subsidise the programme and make it free, but it’s less effective,” Fleming said. “There has to be both a carrot and a stick.”

One programme being offered through health services firm Vitality Group provides an Apple Watch for $25, a fraction of the retail cost. But employees must “pay” for the device by completing workouts and gym visits each month.

Growth in such programmes over the past few years coincides with incentives to meet Obamacare goals on preventive care, and with new research suggesting that more activity can ward off many medical ailments.

Data mining

But the new programmes raise questions about private data collected and stored by insurers.

While employers and insurers must comply with US privacy regulations so that health data cannot be seen or used by employers, critics still worry.

“Technology is outpacing the legal protections in place,” said Bradley Shear, a Washington lawyer specialising in privacy.

“While some employee wellness programmes and the data collected may be protected under [federal privacy law], others may not be.”

A report this year by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab warned of potential problems. For example, there have been situations where fitness tracker-related information was introduced in sexual assault cases or personal injury claims.

“Such data, if it can be manipulated, brings such evidence into question as well as the broader trustworthiness of fitness tracker data... there are also concerns that the radios in fitness trackers could be used to monitor their wearers’ movements,” the report said.

Barbara Duck, a technology consultant who writes a blog on health privacy, said the financial incentives are not worth it.

Duck said that although insurers cannot sell or disclose personal health data, “they can put a score on your head and sell that”.

“It’s not about making you healthier in the long run, it’s about collecting more data to sell and to score you with,” she said.

Also, some employees will feel compelled to participate because they cannot afford the financial penalties if they don’t, Duck said.

Sales of wearable tech devices surged nearly 200 per cent in the third quarter of last year to 21 million units, according to the latest IDC survey.

Some surveys show as many as 20 per cent of Americans use a fitness tracker.

IDC analyst Lynne Dunbrack said it will take time to see if fitness trackers take hold in the workplace and achieve their goals.

“Part of the challenge with these programmes is that the ones who tend to use it the most and stay with it are not the target population for the chronic problems,” she said.

Gaza as a Metaphor
Edited by Helga Tawil-Souri & Dina Matar
London: Hurst & Company, 2016
Pp. 265

If one initially wonders why a literary device like metaphor was chosen to address the all-too-real situation in Gaza, Dina Matar’s introduction provides an answer: “As Gaza becomes increasingly physically inaccessible, perhaps the easiest way to bring it closer — to grasp it, to humanise it, maybe even change it — is through metaphors.” (p. 2)

While the book cites statistics, Matar reminds that “numbers often conceal more than they expose”, and fail to convey “the context of Gaza’s lived realities”. (p. 3-4)

It is the latter which is addressed from different angles by the 23 contributors to “Gaza as a Metaphor”, who include academics, journalists, writers, doctors and UN officials. Several of them were born in Gaza; most have spent extended time there; all have something unique and important to impart in this compilation of consistently excellent essays. 

In “Gaza as Larger than Life”, Helga Tawil-Souri shows concretely how metaphor can re-humanise perceptions of its inhabitants: “There are 2 million experiences of survival and creativity that are, given the conditions hindering them, extraordinary... Gaza is a voluminous will to live.” (pp. 15-16) “Gaza is… the larger than life shadow of the coloniser’s fear: a people that cannot be quelled.” (p. 26)

This last conviction is a recurring theme throughout the book.

Bringing Gaza closer are a number of personal essays, some using irony and humour as their means of truth telling. Among them is Haidar Eid’s diary of Israel’s 2014 onslaught, in which he laments, “So much technology, so much communication, so many words, so little action, so little change.” (p. 31) 

Eid also makes a poignant comparison to the 1948 Nakbeh and its continuation in the present, another recurring theme in the essays, and stresses the need to return to the roots of the conflict: “Now, the lifting of the siege is not enough. When this barbaric attack ends with the victory of the Palestinian people, we do not want a Palestinian Authority, nor Oslo Accords, nor ‘security coordination’… [We want] the end of occupation, apartheid and colonialism.” (p. 35)

The metaphors used to characterise Israeli policy paint a horrifying picture of steady deterioration in Gazans’ living conditions. Several essays trace the decline of Gaza from a Bantustan to a giant internment camp to an animal pen or zoo, in what Darryl Li terms “an ongoing process of controlled abandonment”. (p. 188)

To the list of high-tech weaponry that has turned Gaza into a war laboratory, Ilana Feldman, writing about Gaza’s increasing isolation, adds “immobility as a lethal weapon”. (p. 95)

For his part, Said Shehadeh argues that the 2014 war “was designed to engineer trauma on a massive scale, and amounts to mass torture inflicted on the entire Gazan population”. (p. 37)

“Gaza is transforming yet again, this time from a zoo to a torture chamber.” (p. 51)

Many authors point out that the media’s failure to provide historical context makes it appear that Israeli attacks are ad hoc responses to Palestinian violence. The book remedies this failure with a number of in-depth accounts of Gaza’s particular history, such as the essays of Ramzy Baroud and Salman Abu Sitta. 

Humanitarianism, no matter how well intentioned, also comes under scrutiny for dovetailing with the Israeli policy of enforced helplessness, neglecting history and disguising the fact that Gaza’s catastrophes are man-made and thus preventable. Jehad Abu Salim speaks for many others when he contends, “The fact that Gaza’s crisis could be solved tomorrow if the majority-refugee population were granted its right of return is completely ignored by the humanitarian discourse.” (p. 93) 

Another important theme is that the almost unbearable situation in Gaza is not an exception or isolated example, but what Israel intends for the Palestinians overall. Israeli structures and methods of control and punishment, which originated in Gaza, are now commonplace in the West Bank as well — walls, fences, checkpoints morphed into border-like terminals, the segregation and urban concentration of the population as more and more land is confiscated, etc. As stated by Glen Bowman, “Israeli policies are fundamentally the same for both areas but… Gaza is further down the road to encystation and bare life.” (p. 120)

Sara Roy’s deeply moral essay counters Israel’s claim that Gaza is a place where innocent civilians do not exist, saying that “among all the stories Gazans could tell, one continues to preoccupy them more than all the others — an entreaty that still remains unheard: the quest for human dignity”. (p. 220) 

If widely read, this book has the potential to raise the volume and increase the resonance of Gazans’ stories.

NEW YORK — Turns out there’s a shadowy global industry devoted to breaking into smartphones and extracting their information. But you’ve probably never heard of it unless you’re a worried parent, a betrayed spouse — or a federal law enforcement agency.

Now one of those hacking businesses may well be helping the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) try to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino killers.

Late Monday, the FBI abruptly put its legal fight with Apple on hold, announcing that an “outside party” had come forward with a way to unlock the phone. If it works, it could render Apple’s forced cooperation unnecessary.

The announcement has thrown a spotlight on a group of digital forensic companies, contractors and freelance consultants that make a living cracking security protections on phones and computers. In effect, they’re legally exploiting software and hardware flaws in products.

Success can mean big bucks and recognition in their field. But most of the companies keep a very low profile. Since the bulk of their business is with governments and law enforcement, there’s no reason to for them to market themselves to companies or regular people. In addition, it’s in their interest to keep exactly what they do under wraps, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technology expert for the ACLU.

“The companies won’t share their secrets. It’s their special sauce,” Soghoian said. “And they certainly won’t tell Apple how they’re doing what they’re doing.”

For the moment, no one outside the justice department appears to know who the FBI’s white knight is. A great deal of speculation centres on Cellebrite — an Israel-based forensics firm that says it does business with thousands of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, militaries and governments in more than 90 countries — though it remains one of several possible candidates. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Cellebrite, founded in 1999, has contracts with the FBI dating back to at least 2013. It signed a separate $15.3 million deal with the FBI on Monday, according to government records. The firm makes devices that allow law enforcement to extract and decode data such as contacts, pictures and text messages from more than 15,000 kinds of smartphones and other mobile devices.

It also makes commercial products that companies can use to help their customers transfer data from old phones to new ones. Apple even uses Cellebrite devices in some of its stores.

In the cybersecurity arms race, Apple has managed to stay ahead of these forensic companies. Cellebrite’s website says its commercial tools work with iPhones running older operating systems, including iOS 8, but not the latest version, iOS 9, which is on the San Bernardino phone.

Of course, it’s possible that one of these companies has made a breakthrough.

“Anything is crackable — it’s just how much time do you have and how much money do you have to spend,” said Jeremy Kirby, sales director at Susteen, a Cellebrite competitor in Irvine, California, that says it’s not the FBI’s outside party.

Susteen started as a software developer that made tools for cellphone companies. Kirby said his firm began developing forensic products for law enforcement about 10 years ago, after the FBI asked it to produce a tool that could preserve cellphone data for criminal investigations.

Now the company says its products are used by the defence department and hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide. It also sells a less powerful data extraction tool for consumers who want to check up on their kids or spouses by seeing their text messages, e-mails, smartphone photos and even deleted files.

Forensic companies maintain their own research staffs that probe target devices for weak spots, but for tough jobs, they sometimes turn to freelance hackers, some of whom will work for the highest bidder.

“What we’re seeing now is what you can’t do for yourself, you can buy,” said Zuk Avraham, founder of the mobile security firm Zimperium, which seeks to defend phones against hacking.

Inspired by the FBI-Apple stand-off, Rook Security, an Indianapolis-based cybersecurity firm that works with law enforcement, formed an expert team devoted to creating a copy of an iPhone’s flash memory , hoping a backup would allow investigators to restore data that could be wiped out after too many wrong password guesses.

Many security researchers think that might work, though no one has announced success or demonstrated it on an iPhone running iOS 9 or higher.

Avraham said he has no doubt the San Bernardino iPhone can be hacked.

“It’s only a matter of time and resources,” he said. “We have seen so many times when security researchers claim something to be impossible. They’re proven wrong over time.”

NEW YORK – British carmaker Jaguar has developed a tool to win over seen-it-all millennials who view a conventional test drive as passe.

Seeking to tap into younger customers’ desire for a few moments of cinematic glory, Jaguar films the prospective customers behind the wheel as they navigate the vehicle through several precarious driving challenges, channeling their inner speed demon.

Moments later, they are e-mailed a slickly edited two-minute film, which can conveniently be uploaded to Facebook and social media sites.

“It all takes literally minutes,” said Jaguar spokesman Stuart Schorr. “By the time you’re done, you’ve taken a test drive, but you’ve also got an asset that’s shareable and fun.”

The clever tactic is part of the 94-year-old brand’s effort to boost its US sales as it broadens its offerings in 2016 with the introduction of new models, including the F-PACE, Jaguar’s first sports utility vehicle. 

But all the automakers at this week’s New York International Auto Show have the new generation in their sights.

“Generation Y will dictate who wins and who loses in the marketplace,” said John Humphrey of JD Power’s global automotive practice. “It is by far the biggest generation we’ve had in the US.”

BMW, also eyeing millennials, has trained a cadre of some 1,000 showroom “geniuses” — like the staff at an Apple Store “Genius Bar” — to show drivers how they can customise the car’s myriad gadgets and driving tools.

They are distinct from the salesforce and are not supposed to seal deals, said Ludwig Willisch, president and chief executive of BMW North America.

Millennials “don’t like sales pressure,” Willisch told the JD Power auto forum Tuesday, as opposed to their parents, the baby boomers, who rely more on test drives and multiple visits before making a purchase.

With millennials, he said, “You only get one shot.”

“If we get this right, and we will, we have the opportunity to create lifelong BMW drivers.” 

Pocketbook challenge       

It is a crucial point for luxury cars, which account for about half of the auto industry’s profits. A long-term worry for auto companies is that with the surge of rideshare programs like Uber and optimism about self-driving cars, younger Americans will drive less than earlier generations did. 

Humphrey said automakers face particular pressure because the overall US auto market is expected to cool significantly following several boom years.

“We’re coming up on the end of the current cycle,” said Humphrey, who warned that the industry could slip back towards overcapacity and a reliance on rebates and cheap prices to move inventory.

Those practices are less a problem for brands like Jaguar and BMW, which cater to a more select group of buyers less influenced by price, Humphrey said. 

But luxury brands face other difficulties with millennials, a generation renowned for carrying hefty student loans and without the means to spend $50,000 or $60,000 on a car. 

Compact and midsized cars accounted for the highest shares of the millennial market in 2015, with a combined 32.6 per cent. Premium vehicles in total accounted for less than 10 per cent, according to JD Power data.

For that reason, luxury automakers are taking the long-term view in their marketing campaigns. 

Few of the 6,000 consumers who have participated in the Jaguar events have ordered one of their cars, Schorr said. But about 60 per cent have shared their personal action videos on Facebook. That creates additional exposure and buzz, enhancing the brand’s prospects.

“The whole subtext is to reintroduce the Jaguar brand to a younger group of customers, and that’s an investment you look to pay off over a number of years,” he said. 

In an apparently strange move, Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S7, features a 12-megapixel (MP) camera, whereas two models ago the company S5’s camera sported 16MP. Does this constitute a step backward, a bad thing?

On the contrary, it is a wise move forward and the decision of a manufacturer that is now mature. More importantly it tells you a lot about deceptive numbers versus quality. If this known commercial behaviour can be found in many fields, it is more particularity flagrant in the world of high-tech where vendors try to entice you to buy their products by impressing you with raw numbers that do not really reflect the final quality or performance.

As a matter of fact, the new Galaxy S7 camera performs significantly better than previous models that have higher MP count and has already received a milestone of 88 per cent, the highest mark by any smartphone camera on the respected DXOMark web reference test. The explanation is simple, regardless of MP count, the S7 lens is of a much better quality. Besides, professional photographers are rarely impressed by the MP count that only reflects the size of the photo you get in the end, not its quality. And since 12MP already produce a quite large picture, who needs more then on a phone set?

Transpose the concept to Internet subscriptions now. In Amman you can get a 24Mb ADSL line or a 4Mb leased line, among other options of course. Here again, 24Mb seems faster at first sight. The truth is it is not. The inherent structure of ADSL means that you are actually sharing the line with a few other subscribers and that what you actually get depends on everybody’s usage at any given moment. In other words, the real speed is totally inconsistent and oscillates between some values, the highest of which is 24Mb, if you are very, very lucky.

On the other hand, a leased like is just for you, fully dedicated, no one else uses it and you always get consistent 4Mb, both in upload and download, which anyway is never the case in ADSL mode. Now of course, ADSL even at 24Mb will cost you between 400 and 800 dinars per year (depending on whether you are a home user or a business client), whereas leased lines are five to six times more expensive; but this is another subject altogether.

On to hard disks. Forget about terabytes, although the flashy numbers can always help you to impress your friends over social talk in the evening. Typically vendors will only tell you about how large the capacity of the hard disk is, 1TB, 2TB, etc., but its actual working speed is kept in the background, in the shadow. Hard disks rotational speed varies from as “slow” as 4,500 rpm (rotations per minute) to superfast models operating at 15,000 rpm. In between these two extremes, you get 5,400, 7,500 or 10,000 rpm. The slowest are usually found on entry-level laptop computers, whereas the fastest are installed on servers.

Naturally, in the end it all boils down to numbers when it comes to technology, but vendors should give you all the numbers, not just those they choose to put forward, and the accurate ones what’s more. It’s like telling the truth in court, in cannot be just partial, it must be complete so as not to deceive.

NEW YORK — When Toyota aired a Super Bowl television ad featuring a surprisingly quick Prius gas-electric hybrid eluding police, it marked a turning point for the auto industry.

For years, automakers pushed fuel efficiency to sell hybrid and electric vehicles. Now, in an era of cheap gasoline, the message is: These cars are faster and quieter than their gas-powered counterparts. And, yes, you still save on fuel.

“They’ve graduated out of the class of something that’s a bit of an oddity to drive,” says Mike O’Brien, vice president of product planning for Hyundai. “It’s all about making these cars better.”

Until now, hybrids and electrics have largely appealed to the environmentally-conscious crowd. The vehicles cost thousands of dollars extra, and although drivers eventually recouped their money in fuel savings, the vehicles lacked the power and handling of gas-powered rivals. Electrics also suffered from driver concern that the battery could run out of juice on a trip.

Now, the tide is slowly turning. General Motors and Tesla will bring electric vehicles to market next year priced around $30,000, including a $7,500 federal tax credit. Battery range has improved significantly, experts expect gasoline prices to eventually climb higher, and the advent of autonomous vehicles favors motors powered by electricity over gas.

At the New York International Auto Show on Wednesday, Hyundai and Toyota showed off new electric and hybrid vehicles. Hyundai unveiled battery, gas-electric hybrid and plug-in versions of a new car called the Ioniq, while Toyota showed the plug-in Prius Prime, which can go 35.5km on electricity before the gas-electric power system kicks in. The electric range is double the old version.

The Prius hybrid, powered by gas and electric motors, started the alternative fuel movement in the US in 2000. Toyota deliberately made it look different than other cars, knowing that buyers wanted to make a statement about being environmentally friendly. Other companies set their green cars apart as well.

Even though sales grew as manufacturers added models, they never really caught on, partly because of the improved fuel economy of gas-powered vehicles. At their peak in 2013, with gas averaging $3.50 per gallon, Americans bought only 341,000 hybrids and electrics, about 2.2 per cent of total US car sales, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Companies spent millions developing the cars, taking losses to meet government fuel economy standards that gradually increase and require the new-car fleet to average 87.7km per gallon by 2025.

As gas prices fell below $2 per gallon, sales of hybrids and electrics dropped further. Last year, automakers had 16 hybrid and electric models on sale, but sales sank to just over 274,000.

All of this makes for a bad environment to roll out more hybrids and electrics. But automakers will press on, now selling them on style, acceleration, handling and reliability.

Electric vehicles have few moving parts. “They require far less service,” Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said Wednesday. “No oil changes, and they are extremely reliable.”

As a power source, electricity outpaces gasoline in just about every area, says Karl Brauer, senior auto analyst for Kelley Blue Book. Advancements have made batteries smaller, increased their storage capacity and brought prices down. Electric motors can take off faster than gas engines, and hybrids can power wheels with both electric and gas motors for better acceleration. Electrics also are far quieter.

Yet at $2 per gallon, it would take more than 10 years to recoup the $3,720 price difference between a base model Toyota Camry hybrid and its four-cylinder gas-engine counterpart. But that’s not always a fair comparison, said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst for IHS Automotive. Hybrids often come with more equipment and are comparable to better-equipped, pricier models, she said.

The coming debuts of the Chevrolet Bolt and Tesla Model 3, which will have 322km of electric range, should make battery electric vehicles more appealing, even with cheap gas, Brauer said. A lack of charging stations, once thought to limit adoption of electrics, becomes almost moot because of the longer range, he said.

Self-driving cars, which would use electric motors that can be recharged without humans, also would boost sales.

Brauer thinks electrics and hybrids will make up more than half of US sales in the next 12 years as SUVs and trucks get the new systems. Hyundai’s O’Brien thinks the shift will happen sooner.

Any spike in gas prices will only help. The International Energy Agency last month predicted that oil prices will more than double by 2020 because drillers are cutting investments due to current low prices, which will eventually reduce supply.

But even with cheap oil, Mick Roberts, a 46-year-old hydrogen engineer from Lowell, Indiana, bought a 2015 Chevrolet Volt hybrid in October when gas was $2.20. He got a good deal on an outgoing model, but Roberts says he likes the smooth-shifting, quiet motor and quick acceleration. “It would be tough to go back to gas,” he said.

Still, the automakers know it will take a lot of marketing to get mass adoption.

Bill Fay, Toyota’s US general manager, says there will be more chapters in the Prius police chase ad series, including one for the new plug-in. “The early adopters understand the differences in the technology,” he said. “But with the mainstream customers, we all still have a ways to go to explain the benefits.”

I have often been told that at certain moments, while a million thoughts are buzzing in an average woman’s mind, an ordinary man can be thinking of “nothing”. Nothing? That’s right. Absolutely nothing, like: zilch, nil, zero, naught. 

This is not to say that their brains are vacant or that their thoughts do not amount to something. I am just saying, and this is their own assessment, that periodically, men are capable of blanking out everything and not think of anything. It is as simple as that. 

Not being a man, I do not know how much of it is true and I have to eventually take their word for it. But in case it is correct, I cannot even begin to comprehend what a euphoric state of being that must be and the peace, even if it is for a miniscule minute, from the persistent barrage of endless thinking that we women have to endure. 

Nature has not destined the female of the species to be so blessed, therefore I decide to deliberately train myself to un-think. In other words, empty my head of all thought. It is an uphill task let me tell you. It is not as if one can press a pause button or even use an eraser in sort of physically obliterating the mental musings. There is no definitive filtering or blocking procedure either. So the entire process is filled with trial and error, mostly error. 

I start with looking at a blank computer screen hoping that my thoughts will mirror it. The result unfortunately is a complete disaster as my fingers itch to type on the keyboard and articulate the thoughts zipping across my mind. Ditto with a blank sheet of paper, which I also end up filling with words, echoing my feverish imagination. 

Next I walk out and look at the clear blue sky. “Here I can start practicing thinking of nothing,” says the voice in my head. I drag my favourite rocking chair out in the open lawn and sit on it with my eyes closed. I can now hear the birds chirping in an incessant chatter. I focus on that melodious sound and let it permeate my senses. I feel the cool breeze threatening to blow my hair across my face but I do not change my posture. There is a cat mewing at a distance and a car door slams somewhere further away. 

As I concentrate on my surroundings I feel completely at peace with myself. Soon I realise with a start, that my head is completely blank of all thought, positive, negative or even neutral. I quickly understand that this is what thinking like a man is all about and the methodical blankness gives their brains a deliberate mental rest. I am shortly called indoors and my nothingness comes to an abrupt halt. Still I am glad that I manage to discover it. 

The next time I am in that state my good friend walks into the room. 

“Hey! What’s up”, she greets me. 

“Hello”, I respond. 

“What are you doing?” she asks. 

“Nothing,” I say. 

“What are you thinking?” she persists. 

“Nothing”, I repeat. 

“Listen, are you mad at me?” she comes straight to the point. 

“Not at all,” I reply. 

“So tell me then”, she probes. 

“What?” I am confused. 

“Your thoughts”, she queries. 

“Oh that! Nothing”, I say truthfully. 

“Fine”, she snaps, walking away. 

“Wait, let me explain”, I hurry to make amends. 

CUPERTINO, California — “Good morning and thanks for joining us.”

When Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook began his company’s tri-annual product launch Monday with a refrain any Apple fan or well-versed critics knows by heart, it was a sign they were in for the usual drill.

For years, the formula has worked, turning ordinary press conferences into objects of international fascination and Apple releases into can’t-miss events. But with Apple confronting declining annual sales growth of the iPhone for the first time since it launched in 2007, are even its iconic product unveilings in need of a refresh?

The tech press has jumped on Apple in the last two years, repeatedly blasting the company’s increasingly predictable media events in headlines as “boring”. And social media commentators have piled on.

The rhetoric continued Monday as Apple announced a new 4-inch-display iPhone, called the SE, aimed at consumers whose small hands, tight pockets or thin pocketbooks couldn’t handle the big-screened iPhones unveiled last year. iPhone SE starts at $399, making it the most affordable iPhone ever by $150.

The Cupertino, California, company also released an iPad Pro that doesn’t have a giant screen; colourful wristbands for the Apple Watch; and minor software updates for the Apple TV, iPhone, iPod and iPad. Nothing was a big surprise.

Not even the scheduling. During the last four years, as winter gives way to spring, spring to summer and summer to fall, Cook has taken to a Northern California stage. First, he trumpets Apple’s growth. Then, he and other executives run through demos of new hardware. Faster processors. Better cameras. More battery life. For the biggest announcements, there’s a celebrity or two — maybe a U2 appearance. You get the gist.

Couldn’t a company that heralds itself for being innovative find a way to spice things up? Say, holding media spectacles in a country where Apple is still winning over hordes of first-time customers, including India, Brazil and Russia? Maybe partnering with a media company or moving the event to prime time to help gain new attention?

It’s all possible, but close followers of Apple say nothing is likely to change soon. Though the mere words “Apple event” suggest a highly choreographed performance, starring middle-aged white men in front of gigantic illustrations in a darkened auditorium, the event still draws attention. Just as it did Monday.

The only alterations on the horizon would be slight ones when Apple starts holding events at its new ring-shaped headquarters, expected to open early next year.

“There may be a point where they have to take a greater risk, but that’s not now,” said Roger Kay, president of research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates. “Because they have a winning hand, they should keep playing it. They can continue to milk that for a long time.”

For all the talk of the demise of the iPhone, it’s still the single bestselling phone on the planet next to Samsung’s offerings, accounting for more than $155 billion in revenue last year. That’s more than companies like Intel Corp. and General Electric make from everything they sell. And Cook, pointing to Apple’s image as a luxury brand in countries just starting to see a middle-class develop, has said he’s not concerned about the iPhone falling out of favour.

Wall Street investors recently have seen differently, briefly selling off Apple shares as fast as they did many other tech companies. Some have relegated Apple to a value company that produces predictable, generous profits, but not so much a growth stock anymore. Shares of Apple traded down after Monday’s event, hovering 0.2 per cent down on the day at $105.72 around noon.

In a sense, the company’s stability is reflected in the staid nature of its big unveilings.

That’s fine, Kay said, because Cook’s task is to avoid losing control of the “fantastic machine” that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs left behind when he died in 2011.

“He just wants to drive it down the middle of the road,” Kay said of Cook.

Apple watchers acknowledge that Cook doesn’t have the same dramatic flair as Jobs, which is why people might be looking for something different out of the events. Though he set the tone for the event that endures today, Jobs was famous for capping off events with huge surprises.

Cook, so far, has focused more on subtle changes, including to the events. He has opened them to a global audience via livestream, though Apple hardware and software are required to view.

He also has continued to perfect Apple’s use of celebrity speakers “to place an exclamation point on the product release”, said Paul Kent, who worked with Apple on organising the once-annual Macworld event.

The cameos have included a performance by singer John Mayer when touting an update to GarageBand music-recording software, and a comedic appearance by Stephen Colbert when showing how to make phone calls from a desktop. Kent said Apple’s stunts manage to come off as more than a novelty because they’re woven in well.

“They’ll use music to remind people that Apple’s goal and Apple’s reach is inspiring people to be productive and creative,” Kent said. “It’s been fine-tuned to be used with a greater effect.”

The well-known figures are just one part of what experts consider a premium event experience, reflective of Apple’s status as a high-end brand. Apple uses slick videos to detail the most mundane of features. Mishaps are rare, such as when Chinese audio translations were accidentally streamed to US listeners at the launch of the iPhone 6.

“Nobody is unhappy with the Apple event process; they are straightforward and consistent,” said Kent, who now runs Silicon Valley tech event consulting firm PKCreative.

The elements work so well that T-Mobile, Tesla and other companies now emulate parts of the Apple set-up.

“It’s a product launch event,” said Sandro Olivieri, founder of Productive, an innovation consulting agency in San Francisco. “It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. But people are hungry for it. It’s premium and exclusive and [Apple] wants to continue to drive that hard.”

As far as moving events abroad, Kay said the idea is reasonable.

“They have this role as an international icon and they could step on that gas a little more,” he said.

But Tim Bajarin, a longtime Apple analyst, offered another reason why the process, which dates to spiels Jobs gave in the 1980s, is unlikely to get a new look soon.

“This is a part of their way of honouring Job’s legacy,” he said.

SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BANOS, Cuba — Long known for its cigars and rum, Cuba has added organic honey to its list of key agricultural exports, creating a buzz among farmers as pesticide use has been linked to declining bee populations elsewhere.

Organic honey has become Cuba’s fourth most valuable agricultural export behind fish products, tobacco and drinks, but ahead of the Caribbean island’s more famous sugar and coffee, said Theodour Friedrich, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) representative for Cuba.

“All of [Cuba’s] honey can be certified as organic,” Friedrich told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Its honey has a very specific, typical taste; in monetary value, it’s a high ranking product.”

After the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main trading partner, the island was unable to afford pesticides due to a lack of foreign currency, coupled with the US trade embargo. By necessity, the government embraced organic agriculture, and the policies have largely stuck.

Now that the United States is easing its embargo following the restoration of diplomatic ties last year, Cuba’s organic honey exporters could see significant growth if the government supports the industry, beekeepers said.

Cuba produced more than 7,200 tonnes of organic honey in 2014, worth about $23.3 million, according to government statistics cited by the FAO.

The country’s industry is still tiny compared with honey heavyweights such as China, Turkey and Argentina. But with a commodity worth more per litre than oil, Cuban honey producers believe they could be on the cusp of a lucrative era.

Big dreams, little cash

With 80 boxes swarming with bees, each producing 45kg of honey per year, farm manager Javier Alfonso believes Cuba’s exports could grow markedly in the coming years.

His apiary, down a dirt track in San Antonio de los Banos, a farming town an hour’s drive from the capital Havana, was built from scratch by employees, Alfonso said.

“There is just a bit of production now, but it can get bigger,” he said, looking at the rows of colourful wooden boxes.

Like other Cuban bee farmers, he sells honey exclusively to the government, which pays him according to the world market price and then takes responsibility for marketing the product overseas.

Most of Cuba’s honey exports go to Europe, he said. He would like to be able to borrow money to expand production, but getting credit is difficult, he said, so for now his team of farmers build their own infrastructure for the bees.

“It’s a very natural environment here,” said Raul Vasquez, a farm employee. “The government is not allowed to sell us chemicals — this could be the reason why the bees aren’t dying here” as they have been in other places.

Organic advantage

While Cuba’s small, organic honey industry aims to reap the rewards of increased trade with the United States, honey producers in other regions are under threat, industry officials said.

Beekeepers in the United States, Canada and other regions have long complained that pesticides are responsible for killing their bees and hurting the honey industry more broadly.

The US Environmental Protection Agency released a study in January, indicating that a widely-used insecticide used on cotton plants and citrus groves can harm bee populations.

“I don’t think there are any doubts that populations of honeybees [in the United States and Europe] have declined... since the Second World War,” Norman Carreck, science director of the UK-based International Bee Research Association told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Climate change, fewer places for wild bees to nest, shifts in land use, diseases and pesticides are blamed for the decline, he said.

Because it is pesticide free, Cuba’s organic bee industry could act as protection from the problems hitting other honey exporters, said Friedrich, and could be a growing income stream for the island’s farmers.

“The overall use of pesticides is fairly controlled”, he said. “Cuba has been immune to the bee die-offs [hitting other regions].”